1 Chirreb 4385: Mock Combat

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Mock Combat

Everybody laughed at me when we did combat practice because I insisted on using every weapon available for at least one attack even the ones I'm no good with like axes. Which I borrowed from Mirhandrax. Not his great axe well actually I did borrow his great axe just to see what it was like and I couldn't even hold it much less swing it. He has a smaller axe that he uses one-handed and that I could use with both hands though. Nobody had a rapier though so I couldn't try using one of those. I even borrowed Nightbloom's bow (with which I needed to brace both feet against the stave and use both hands to pull back the string just to nock an arrow to it) and took a few shots with my sling.

Purrzhon watched me use the sling incredulously. "You are carrying a sling why?"

"Because I'm too weak to use a bow that'll do any damage?"

"As opposed to the sling, which cannot do any damage no matter how weak or strong you are?"

"It can hurt! ... a little bit," I said. "A very little bit. Stop laughing at me! I use it to place the stones for bound Change Places spells. Sometimes."

We practiced a lot of charging from above and below and making passes-at-arms while in motion, to get used to the idea of fighting when an opponent could come at you from any direction. It was kinda scary, fighting without anything to fall back against. I have done some play-fighting with my siblings in the lake though so it wasn't entirely unfamiliar to me. After that, we tried fighting around the airship and using it for cover and terrain.

It was pretty fun overall though everybody got pretty worn out after a couple of hours of it except for Mirhandrax who apparently never gets tired EVER. Purrzhon took a nap halfway through but he said we had to keep drilling. "I am the paying customer, rrai! That I am paying you to practice does not mean I must as well." But even Purrzhon let us stop by mid-afternoon.

Fur (and Carapace!) Styling

In the evening we all sat around in the galley and I painted Nightbloom's carapace. I turned the grey swirls on her deep blue chitin into indigo flowers outlined in a paler blue. The effect was subtle and understated which isn't my style at all but it suits Nightbloom well and it matched her name. She liked it! Mirhandrax said it looked good as well and he suggested that Trust and I should maybe have less eye-catching fur patterns too since part of the plan was to ambush people.

"But Purrzhon bound Quiet Veil for us all I thought we were just going to hide and surprise them?"

"True. Yet Quiet Veil will only works while we remain still and concentrate on it. One reason or another might break it. It's always good to have a back up ... just in case."

"Ohhh." I looked over at Purrzhon, who was pretending to nap on the table. "Will you bind me another Quiet Veil before dawn?" He twitched his tail, which I took as a yes.

Mirhandrax added, "And we won't be able to use Quiet Veil at the same time as Fly Like a Bird."

"Would you mind awfully re-doing my fur, Dee? ♥" Trust asked.

So I asked Purrzhon what colors were common in Remorshka Woods and then styled Trust's fur short and in light blues with jagged white and dark blue stripes, which would sort of blend with both the sky and the bluebell trees. It came out all right I guess but I liked him better in red and white. Trust seemed happy with it though. It did give him a rather threatening aspect which isn't like Trust at all. Mirhandrax wanted to know if the same spell worked on armor or clothing. "On leather yes but not metal or cloth. I can probably spont that'd work on cloth though."

Then Mirhandrax asked me to do his fur the same way. It looked better on him than Trust.

I could probably have done my own fur too but doing my own fur is always annoying and I was pretty tired by then so I wrote up this instead. Maybe I'll do my fur tomorrow. Mirhandrax is a really good adventurer I mean he's really sharp and he has good equipment and he knows his stuff and he's very very good with that great axe which is a SCARY SCARY weapon. And it's good that he's paying attention to all of these details and stuff. He'll probably save somebody's life (Trust's I bet).

Still ... I kinda wish he'd lighten up already. I mean dedication is good and all but every waking moment does not need to be dedicated to preparing ourselves for battle does it?

Oh I just remembered I wanted to spend a little time looking at The Little Bird with Many Wings. I'll write to you all later!

Comments

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

True. Yet Quiet Veil will only works while we remain still and concentrate on it. One reason or another might break it.

Not that you'd ever be the first one to do that...

I mean dedication is good and all but every waking moment does not need to be dedicated to preparing ourselves for battle does it?

Having spent most of two months preparing for a battle -- a battle that took about a minute from the first insults to the end -- I can say, no, but you probably shouldn't stop preparing until you're reasonably well prepared. Or too tired to continue.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Yes you're right and we don't even have two months or a powerful wizard to help us ...

... and Trust really really needs the practice. I hope he doesn't get hurt if it comes to fighting I'll feel soooooo guilty!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Would it work on wool or other corpador cloth? I guess if you don't already have wool cloaks it doesn't matter.

Oh, and did Trust have to heal you all up after you got drilled at with Mirhandrax's great axe? O.O Practicing with real weapons sounds dangerous. Or at least painful.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Yay! Fur styling turned to adventuring purr-poses: camouflage fur, very clever! }:D

As for the sling... You could try using it more strategically: use it to launch small flaming things to set them or their defensive emplacements (like arbalests) on fire, or bags of pepper to set them into coughing and sneezing fits. The latter would have to be used carefully, upwind from them so it will blow into their faces, not yours.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Here are some camouflage patterns from my world! Try these out with the colors of the forest in question:

I'm going to link them to you instead of pasting lots and lots of big pictures, since you have shown that you can visit images that were linked to in this way:

http://heretherebetygers.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/alnilam_camouflage_2.png
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/__data/assets/image/948852/varieties/7.jpg
http://www.clipartandcrafts.com/clipart/backgrounds/images/camouflage.jpg
http://www.vanderlee.com/plugins/camouflage/camouflage_plugin_example_curtains_2.jpg
http://www.incamouflage.com/wp-content/uploads/woodland_camouflage_pattern.jpg

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Oh sorry that was for Delight.

[zeeth_kyrah]

Odd that slings will never do actual damage. Where I live, there is an ancient tale of a man who killed a giant with his sling, hitting the giant in the forehead and destroying it.

Perhaps if you had an attack spell of some sort that you could fling with your sling, you could bind it up on some stones or nuts and use those against monsters.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

I could it'd give more range on spells although attack spells are better fresh-cast than bound because the power isn't as good on bound spells. Which doesn't matter for some kinds of spells but usually anything you're attacking with it's important. More powerful spells are harder to resist and do more damage.

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

As a terrestrial aside, do in part to certain fantasy games, the sling is seriously underestimated where I come from. It's actually an exceptionally potent weapon, in that it's used to throw rocks at very high speed at your enemies with reasonable range and accuracy. On the tree, due to both the lack of harder objects to throw and the way their bodies connect to their souls, it is likely more in line with how terrestrial fantasy treats it.